the fatigue of strangers
by coeur de lyon
Summary: Shikamaru is tired and dying and she is alive and well. And the world falls apart at the seams because looking underneath the underneath isn't always as deep as you can go. A look into interactions with strangers, from a shinobi POV.


**A/N:** Hmmm. This is hella random. It started off because I'm tired, and then turned into something else. It made me think though, so I hope it does the same for you. If you flame me… then you need to get a life, honestly.

**Summary:** Shikamaru is tired and dying, and she is alive and well. And the world falls apart at the seams because looking underneath the underneath isn't always as deep as you can go. A look into interactions with strangers, from a shinobi POV (cryptic much? Urgh. I hate summaries.)

**Warnings****:** Um…death, if that needs one (I sound mighty emo, don't I?), an OC (which is the point of this) and accented language. Artistic licence and er…some other stuff, probably. But give it a go.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the rights to Naruto, this isn't made for cash. Hell, I get paid for my own stuff, why would I want Kishimoto's? Anywho, enjoy fatigue :D

the fatigue of strangers

_Gare de Lyon_

He's tired. He allows himself the luxury of the thought, and, just before the world falls apart, he is soothed. He is tired, and he isn't the best, and that's alright because he's never really cared about labels like genius and best anyway. Cumulus clouds, shogi, a kunai that has just the right weight to be thrown with point zero accuracy, these things have always mattered to him more, always will, have never stopped mattering, even though he's older now, and tired, and he's fighting a losing battle with chakra that's already gone. He feels the shadows flickering out, crawling only partway up the hunter nin's body before shrinking, seeping like water down the side of her leg, and he is surprised that his chakra wasn't enough, because he calculated everything because he does, and it should have worked. The fact that it hasn't, because he didn't anticipate (of all things) the _sparring session_ that left him with less than full reserves that morning (he doesn't have a demon's stamina) he is resigned to; and the three words "I am tired." are the last thing he thinks as, in an eyeblink, she is free, and in a heartbeat, blood is spilling out of his gut and mouth and he is lying on the ground clutching at his belly wound with a hunter nin staring at him with anger in her eyes.

"Leaf Scum." She says, standing over him, and he isn't sure whether she was aiming for his nose or his eyes or his mouth, but somehow all three of them are claggy with her spit, which _burns_, and not well. But they are at war, and he knows that he can't or couldn't or shouldn't have expected any less.

And all he can do is cough up blood and clutch at his stomach, feeling the alien metal, lodged deep inside, knowing exactly what sort of havoc she has wreaked upon his body, and wondering if, if there is such a thing as fate, what path lead him down to this death, and when. Was it simply when he decided to intercept her (knowing he had no other choice) that fine winter morning, or when the Godaime told him that he was needed in Sand and that she couldn't get him out of it (because he does like Temari, maybe even loves her, but she doesn't love him, and he knows this, because he sees the way her golden-green eyes darken when she looks at Naruto, and because he loves them both and because he doesn't care about being the best, there's nothing he can do about it.) and he dawdled on the way back? Was it when he learned the shadow possession jutsu, training at home, Ino sitting down in the sun fanning herself, and Chouji tearing open a pack of chips in their old genin days, or when his mother first decided that he was to be a Shinobi? Or, even earlier than that (because he doesn't like the idea that another is responsible for this, and he doesn't like to believe that other people can shape his destiny, if such a thing exists) when he himself watched his father come in, covered in blood, and resolved to be the one to fix it when he was big enough, when he was five.

These thoughts flicker through his mind as she bends down and he feels her deceptively smooth fingertips locate the pulse in his neck. He stares past her head at the blue sky (and it is winter, that time of year when the sun shines fiercely, and there are no clouds but a chill wind blows through his tattered jonin vest all the same) and measures his heartrate himself. It takes longer than it should. She pulls her mask back down over her scowl and stretches up again.

"You shouldn't have done that, comrade. You could have lived." He has no strength to reply, to beg the _comrade_ sardonically. He tries to explain, tries to mouth the words instead.

He senses, rather than sees, the frown on her face, her head cocked to the side through the porcelain she wears. "Something to say?"

_I am tired_

And the words act like a truth potion, and the world comes tumbling down around his ears.

"Mm…" she nods. "You ANBU Black Ops. Worked too hard. For nothing. Your Hokage's dying slowly – yep. I'd say all the villages know by now," at the look of consternation on his face. "And you been short-strawed. What you got to live for in Konoha anyways, huh?"

Her accent is oddly lyrical. The result, no doubt, of the motley refugee camp Rain would have been, when she was growing up, and he notes, grimacing, (because the pain in his gut is _piercing_) that she has squatted down next to him, and that if he had enough chakra left, he could kill her in a flash. But he doesn't, and she knows this, so she is. She scratches at her forehead, and her hitai ate catches a ray of sunlight and dazzles him momentarily.

"What's your name, Leaf Scum?"

_Shika-mm_ lips pressed into a thin line to stop from screaming, convulsing, _dying_.

"Shika huh? That's funny. You Leaf nin, crack me up. Either too soft or too hard. No perfect in between. That's where it's best to be y'know? Hard enough to withstand and bendy enough to throw your enemies force against you. Soft names and bad missions." A tone of worry or something in her voice makes him wonder just what sort of sadist she is. "You_ dying_ for what I got off that other boy huh?" He closes his eyes, because the light is dancing off the Rain symbol on her brow and it's making his eyes burn along with the rest of him. "Wanna see what you dying for, Shika huh?" and despite himself he looks. The acid in his gut is slipping into the rest of his body, destroying his delicate insides, and he does indeed want to see what he's dying for, what she holds in the sealed bag on her back, next to her bow.

Wants to see what's made that note of pity creep into her funny, sing-song, Rainy voice.

"Keepsakes, Shika scum. He aksed for to go back to his sister." There, in her hand, are the dead nin's keepsakes, as she calls them. A red stone, a hawk's feather, and a coin stamped through and tied on a leather thong.

So much for course-of-the-war-changing secrets. They are at war. And he has died for _this_. Not to keep Ino and Chouji and his old, retired parents safer. Not to keep Temari's future alive. Not to fix it. She pulls her mask off again, and her heavy black braids of hair fall down over her face.

"Not a good thing to have died for, huh Shika scum. Memories of a dead boy for his kid sister. None to end the war, to save the world."

It hurts. The pain is eating away at his goddamned _brain_ now, and his vision is fading and the futility of his death mixes like bile inside and makes him vomit redly onto his clothes. She recoils a little, sadness in her eyes.

"Tell ya what." She says, and he hopes to hell that it's compassion in her voice. "I help you out."

_Yes._ He wants to say. _Yes. Help me out. _She pulls off a glove, readying a fist and the last thing he sees is her clenched hand, the veins sticking out astonishingly blue against her fair skin, knowing that she's ending it for him. He closes his eyes, and feels her wrench the shuriken from his belly, feels the fire and then the relief as the blow of her fist against his temple eases him into the blackness. And _being_ has never mattered less.

Shikamaru wakes up, where he was, in a pool of blood. A sluggish ache in his head where she knocked him out, and a dull throbbing in his abdomen below the layers of bandage – wait. She…she _spared_ him? He sits up, feels the chakra surge through his body and the insect bites on his bare arms. Sees the neatly dressed wound, still not entirely healed, but far less serious. Idly, he scratches at his tattoo, elation coursing through him. Her spit and his bloody vomit have dried on his clothes and he feels disgusting and blessedly alive.

In the sandy soil next to him, there's a message, scrawled with a branch.

_Second time lucky, huh Shika Scum?_

He stares at the words for a long time, and then he brushes them out with the palm of his hand. Etched into his heart, they'll never leave him. One of the happier shinobi stories he tells his grandchildren.

He never sees the Rain-nin again.

/Story.

Just thought it'd be something Tsunade might die of. Liver poisoning from too much alcohol. That's what that was referring to. It'd be more original than having one of her pupils kill her, anyway .

Umm…hmm…yes. Just a random thing on the kindness of strangers and being tired. The strange camaraderie of warriors and what we value and don't and being tired. I'm tired, can you tell? :P Anywho, cheers for reading!


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